I got these from a different forum where a member posted these quotes taken from the "Jordan Rules" book. Reading some of these quotes makes me wonder, would Jordans' image take a big hit from these had these occurred in the powerful media we have now? As great as Jordan was, are these appropriate and are players held to a much different standard today, because you'll see a lot of people cry if players throw their teammates or the organization under the bus (ala Mamba), etc but what makes Jordan different? And I really think this is what made Jordan so great, he was an assassin who also criticized the organ and teammates as another 1 assassin we have in the NBA today

Very entertaining read:

"We're beating a lot of poor teams. So what? We won a lot of games last year, too. Will Horace and Bill still be playing at this level in the playoffs...Can Pip keep it up?"

"I hate being out there with those garbagemen. They don't get you the ball."

"They've got no idea what it's all about. The white guys, they work hard, but they don't have the talent. And the rest of them? Who knows what to expect? They're not good for much of anything."

"I know what's gonna happen. We'll wait until the last minute and then they'll say something like they couldn't get a deal done because of the cap or somebody pulled out at the last minute. It happens here all the time. I don't know why I'm surprised every year."

"He can't do anything with the ball. Don't give it to him." - Michael yelling at Paxson who passed the ball to Perdue

"You ever hear of a guy, six-eleven maybe and two hundred sixty pounds, a guy big and fat like that and he can't get but two rebounds, if that many, running all over the damn court and he gets two rebounds? Big guy like that and he gets one rebound. Can't even stick his **** into people and get more than that...Big, fat, fat guy. One rebound in three games. Power forward. Maybe they should call it powerless forward." - Michael ripping Stacey King a new one

"He was scared in there and panicking. He just lost it when Stockton scored." - Michael on B.J. Armstrong's mental fragility

I'll let them stand up and take responsibility for themselves."

"We have to do some things. We need to make some changes."

"...I call them 'the Looney Tunes.' Physically, they were the best. Mentally, they weren't even close."

"He's scared. He's got no heart...Nobody told me that. If I had spoken up, he wouldn't have been here."

"I know I can recognize what to do, but I'm not sure they can."

"It's a hell of a lot easier to make Earl Monroe look good than it is Brad Sellers."

"I hope there's a jumpshot in there." - Michael to Stacey King who was walking into the locker room with a box

"They don't need a ticket to watch you sitting on the bench. They can go to your house for that." - Michael to Charles Davis who was sorting through his tickets for his family and friends

"Give me the ******* ball." - Michael to Doug Collins who drew up a play for Dave Corzine

"I hate when I have to read that in the papers the next day, that I couldn't do something. It wasn't my fault."

"You're an idiot. You've screwed up every play we ever ran. You're too stupid to even remember the plays. We ought to get rid of you." - Michael to Horace Grant

"If you [pass the ball to Bill Cartwright], you'll never get the ball from me."

"We're not winning because of talent. We're just beating bad teams."

"Headache tonight, Scottie?" - Michael asks Scottie, while showing him his 2-for-16 line

"It's probably a twelve-day. He needs two days to wake up." - Michael on a ten-day contract teammate

"Five more years and I'm out of here. I'm marking these days on a calendar, like I'm in jail. I'm tired of being used by this organization, by the league, by the writers, by everyone."

"They're not interested in winning. They just want to sell tickets, which they can do because of me. They won't make any deals to make us better. And this Kukoc thing. I hate that. They're spending all their time chasing this guy."

"If I were a general manager, we'd be a better team."

"Will Vanderbilt. He doesn't deserve to be named after a Big Ten school." - Michael on Will Perdue

"I want to prove the critics wrong...I want to see some serious moves from management, which I really haven't seen that much of yet, and I want to see more serious attitudes from my teammates this year when it comes to the playoffs. In the past, it's been more or less a joking thing, sort of a 'Well, we're here, so let's have a good time.'"

"I'm sure everything will be fine if we win, but if we start losing, I'm shooting."

"I know what I would do if I were coach. I'd determine our strengths and weaknesses and utilize them. And it's pretty clear what our strength is."

shobe_81 wrote:"You ever hear of a guy, six-eleven maybe and two hundred sixty pounds, a guy big and fat like that and he can't get but two rebounds, if that many, running all over the damn court and he gets two rebounds? Big guy like that and he gets one rebound. Can't even stick his **** into people and get more than that...Big, fat, fat guy. One rebound in three games. Power forward. Maybe they should call it powerless forward." - Michael ripping Stacey King a new one

"I hope there's a jumpshot in there." - Michael to Stacey King who was walking into the locker room with a box

"They don't need a ticket to watch you sitting on the bench. They can go to your house for that." - Michael to Charles Davis who was sorting through his tickets for his family and friends

"It's probably a twelve-day. He needs two days to wake up." - Michael on a ten-day contract teammate

What made Jordan the way he is... is his competitive nature, if your getting paid millions and making mistakes and causing errors... Jordan looks at that as failure to do what you're getting paid to do... punching them on the face is better than firing their butts i suppose... I'd take the million and allow Jordan to punch me on the face hopefully learning not to make mistakes next time.

Jordan as a human is not very nice, as this is due to his competitive nature... your a weaklink he won't sugar coat it... and be nice... and say "you tried your best, thats all that counts"... in the media yes.. but most stars say nice things in front of the media..

It's weird though how Jordan is the NBA Standard for the Best Player, but the quotes are hidden by the analysts and the media!

You can look at the quotes in two different ways. One, that he was saying the stuff as a motivational tactic. Obviously you can either be a hardass or a goody-too-shoes type person, Jordan was clearly the hardass. Point is, it's accepted and not really looked at as a negative trait because he led the bulls to 6 titles as the main man, which makes pretty much justifies what he did.

You can look at the quotes in two different ways. One, that he was saying the stuff as a motivational tactic. Obviously you can either be a hardass or a goody-too-shoes type person, Jordan was clearly the hardass. Point is, it's accepted and not really looked at as a negative trait because he led the bulls to 6 titles as the main man, which makes pretty much justifies what he did.

So if Kobe got 3 rings with the current squad, would it justify what he did in the off-season or what people seem to think he did?

I don't really have a problem with Jordan saying that stuff because as I said, that's what made him so great!

I posted this in another Kobe related thread but, the main reason Jordan was likeable was because people could relate to him.

1) Jordan was cut from his HS basketball team as the reason he works so hard.

2) Jordan sticks out his tongue because he was emulating what his dad would do while working.

These are the kinds of things that endear people to you. Not publicly feuding with Shaq. Not asking to be traded. Not being charged for assault. I'm not current on my Kobe Bryant but, I don't think he gets along with his dad. Dude got booed in his hometown. How does that happen?

Meh it wasn't made a big deal in the past because people weren't so obsessed with political correctness as they are today.
Today we have robot interviews: everyone played hard, we had an off night, we fought hard, they hit their shots we didn't, we didn't execute etc....BOOORING.
People get pissed when players truly speak their mind, half the people hate Arenas because he tells it like he sees it, true he is sometimes not right, but he speaks his mind and he doesn't sugarcoat the issue.
So what if a player speaks his mind to the media, if he has probably been saying the same thing to the organization for months.
I have no problem with players speaking out, people didn't used to have a problem with it in the past, but today everyone is just so politically corect its annoying.

shobe_81 wrote:I got these from a different forum where a member posted these quotes taken from the "Jordan Rules" book. Reading some of these quotes makes me wonder, would Jordans' image take a big hit from these had these occurred in the powerful media we have now?

It's weird though how Jordan is the NBA Standard for the Best Player, but the quotes are hidden by the analysts and the media!

Hidden? There was a freakin book about them!

Honestly, it was just as much, in the media as it is today. Anyone following basketball knew about this scandalous book that was coming out.

Just because a lot of Kobe jockers were in diapers doesn't mean the media "hid" this stuff.

It wasn't as big of deal back then because there wasn't any internet. Prime example is this thread and website. Before all you had was an newspaper article and maybe a news report and that was forgotten by most in a week or two. Now with the internet you can actually go and get old articles out of archives and keep bringing them up for the masses to keep hatching over them.

He's a d*ck. Always has been, always will be. I've not really met him, but I've known several people who have, and they all say he's an ass.

I think there is some weird stuff that goes on with MJ, that his d*ckness gets confused with being part of what made him such a great player. To a degree, that's accurate...I think SOME of the quotes above reflect that competitive drive that made him great. But some of them are just a d*ck being a d*ck.

For example:

"I hate when I have to read that in the papers the next day, that I couldn't do something. It wasn't my fault."

I see nothing of merit there. Nothing that makes you a winner. That's just a guy looking out for number one, worrying about how he is portrayed.

Again, I think there were aspects of MJ's personality which made him a d*ck and also made him an extraordinary player...but there are also aspects which were superfluous to being a great player, and were just the kind of talk a spoiled early teen would come up with if they were allowed to say whatever they wanted. Joe Montana was super competitive. So was Hakeem. So was Gretzky. So was Pele. So were all kinds of extraordinary competitors, and many of them reflected the competitive aspects of MJ's personality without being incredible d*cks.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

Who cares how Mj was as a person. We all watched him play because he was owning the whole league. What people respect about MJ is his tunnel vision when it comes to winning. Mj was portrayed favorably in the media because he was an icon and every kid wanted to be 'just like Mike'. The public forgave him for whatever wrong he may have done. Fans looked up to him as a role model. They cult worshipped him. He could do no wrong. He became the new standard for excellence..

Kobe's problem is that he came into a league with an arrogant smug type of attitude that he would be dominant. He may have been right but teammates and fans were not ready for his cocky behavior. He also faced the Jordan stigma since Jordan worshippers didn't want to accept that someone could be as good as thier god.

Fans never felt beholden to Kobe. His arrogant attitude didn't sell well outside of LA. When he was starting to reach his apex he got hit with the rape accusation which blowed up in his face. He had no control to spin the story. After beating the charge his coach and HOF teamate(O'neal) left him.

PJAX writes a book describing Kobe' selfish behavior and how he is uncoachable. The public has just been less forgiving of Kobe. He lost some of his strongest supporters, outside of LA, after the rape charge. The big reason Mj isn't villified is because fans were attached to the hip of MJ and his record was spotless. He also had charisma and spoke intelligently in interviews. His buisness like persona also appealed to an older generation. Kobe's image is tarnished for the large public. Kobe just provides to much ammunition for people to dislike him. He's a great player and NBA fans know he has game. Whether or not they respect him as a person is a completely different issue.